


Fire's Birthright

by AutisticMob



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: ABA 'Therapy', Ableism, Abuse of Authority, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aromantic, Arospec Characters, Autistic Zuko (Avatar), Background Het, Background Relationships, Canon Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Character Study, Child Abuse, Disability, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Happy Ending, Everyone Is Gay, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Family Issues, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Let Zuko Say Fuck, Mental Health Issues, Minor Original Character(s), Misgendering, Missing Scene, Nonbinary Character, One Shot, Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stimming, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, Time Skips, Trans, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, Vignette, and kissing. and getting married., background Kataraang, background Sukka - Freeform, old people dating, so no ptsd zuko tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25652773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutisticMob/pseuds/AutisticMob
Summary: A Zuko-centric character study focused on his autistic, gay, and transgender experience through the years, from his childhood as Ozai's son to the beginning of his reign as Fire Lord.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Izumi & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 111





	Fire's Birthright

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so...this fic is like 90% self-projection. Most of this is based off my own experiences with my abusive father, being autistic, transmasc, and an aro gay. Writing this was really cathartic, which is probably why it's so long when I originally intended for it to just be a short oneshot.
> 
> As always, I want to thank my lovely readers for your committed readership, as well as for all the kudos, comments, and the overwhelming outpouring of love from those who've supported me.

“S-Sir, please. I assure you, nothing is wrong with your daughter. Nothing physically, at least. Her condition won’t shorten her life or anything,” the man’s voice was thin and shaking. 

Zuko drew in a sharp breath, chest and lungs aching. 

“What _is_ wrong with her, then? I didn’t come to you to be reassured, I came to you to find out what the problem with her is.”

“It’s...complicated.”

A short pause followed by an orange flash burned in the dull, snowy gray of Zuko’s vision, back pressed against the wall. 

The trembling, small voice started up again. “I...I believe she has a little understood condition called ‘self-obstruction syndrome’. It’s a neurological and developmental condition which has different effects in different people. As I stated earlier, it isn’t exactly well-understood. Even our nation’s best scientists and doctors have trouble giving it a conclusive definition...”

Ozai growled and let out a shout, followed by a loud slam and another orange flash, and Zuko tensed up as the light cast their silhouettes dancing across the floor. 

“U-Um...basically, it’s a disorder that causes issues with social communication and some minor behavioral problems. Like I said though, it’s almost impossible to determine what other symptoms she may have later in life. Th-The good news is that, um...she’s in perfect physical health, and her disorder doesn’t seem to have any bearing on her intelligence. She’s at a perfectly normal intelligence level for a child her age, d-dare I say even a little smarter!” A nervous laugh punctured the tense, hot air. 

“And how long will this last? More importantly...how did she end up like this, and how can I fix it?” Ozai’s voice rumbled through the walls like an earthquake. 

“I...it’s usually lifelong. I’ve never seen anyone grow out of it, although regarding your question about fixing it, I suppose she could be given psychiatric treatment that could help her be more...normal. Still, I wouldn’t worry too much. She’ll most likely be able to live independently with little support from any adults. As for how she ended up like this...i-it isn’t exactly clear. As I said earlier, this disorder isn’t very well understood, including the causes of it. Even the healthiest of women can give birth to children with the syndrome, although there’s some evidence it could be hereditary.”

“Hereditary?”

The suffocating, dry heat in the air intensified.

“Yes, i-if someone else in your family has it, then...there’s an increased chance that your daughter would be born with it as well.”

“I can assure you that nobody in our family has any such...problems. I trust you’d be the first one to catch something like that, am I correct? Or should I send you to the colonies?”

“Ah, um...y-yes sir, of course. I most certainly would’ve caught it had someone else in your family displayed any symptoms, but...your glorious bloodline is just so perfect, it’s likely that your daughter is just an anomaly. After all, one in every couple of thousand children seems to be born with traits similar to what your daughter exhibits. If...if it’s any consolation, our research data collected from colony children shows that they have higher rates of the disorder than children born here.”

It was a lot of information to take in, but Zuko’s tiny hands got to work bouncing little embers between his fingers, watching the small orange light spark across his skin. The fog in his brain cleared, followed by a bolt of terror like lightning as everything struck him all at once. 

He ran. He ran as fast as his small legs would carry him down the massive, dark, looming marble halls down to his room and dove into his bed, surrounding his body with the blanket like a silkworm entering its cocoon—just the way he liked it. 

But sleep failed to find him as he stared up at the canopy of his massive bed. The words of their family physician repeated in his mind, muddled by lots of terms his young mind struggled to understand. 

Still, the tone was obvious. It was serious, and his father sounded more angry than he usually did, which was saying something. He knew they were talking about him, and he could assume it was related to the supposedly strange behaviors he’d exhibited since he was a young child. 

Zuko couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t felt it. The strange, almost dizzying feeling clawing at the edge of his existence, always making itself known wherever he went. 

Put simply, he stuck out. Not in a way that he looked strange, but in a surreal way, almost as if he was cut from paper and pasted over the backdrop of everyone else’s lives. It could be equated to staring through the fuzzy, warped-glass window of a bathhouse, but he lived on the outside, and everyone else lived on the inside. Everyone involved could see and talk to and even touch each other, but the sense of separation never went away. 

He’d tried to bring it up with Mai, but where would he even start? Besides, how could he possibly describe it? She’d just laugh and say he was crazy or that he needed more sleep or that maybe he ate something bad and it was getting to him. 

Was the feeling caused by the disorder, or was it itself the disorder? 

How was a child supposed to know? 

The thought chewed at him, grating at the edge of his mind whenever sleep threatened to overtake him and pulling him back to the swirling, raging storm of his thoughts, disorderly though they were. 

It was going to be a long night.

  


* * *

  


“Huang, stop doing that.”

His father’s stern, sharp voice sent a tiny spark of terror through him, just like it did every time he spoke. Ozai had never physically hurt him, sure, but Zuko knew he could. Sometimes, it felt as though he was just _waiting_ for the opportunity to come, as if the constant tension that hung in the air was just the calm before the storm. 

They both knew what he was capable of. He was terrified that one day his father would snap, and something horrible would happen. 

How bitter. 

“D-Doing what?” Zuko asked softly, staring down at his plate. 

“Doing that...stupid thing with your foot. You’re shaking the entire table and making yourself look like a fool.”

Azula smirked from across the table. “Yeah, stop. It’s annoying, plus it makes you look like a freak.”

“I-I’m not—”

“And look at me when I speak to you. Where are your manners?”

Zuko looked up at his father, his sharp figure looming above in the chair beside him. His own eyes crept up to meet his father’s, golden-orange and burning with a terrible black fire that he’d never seen in his own. Pain shot though his eyes and the center of his forehead, and he pulled his gaze away in terror. 

Ozai clicked his tongue. “Disappointment.”

He’d heard it a hundred times, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. The bolt of pain moved from his forehead down to his chest, and out of his peripheral he noticed his mother glaring at Ozai. “How could you say that to her? She’s doing her best!”

“Why can’t you be more like Azula?” 

Another chip into the bleeding marble of his soul; shaping him into the person he’d become as an adult, seething and filled with an anger that was everything his father’s wasn’t.

Azula beamed, and Ozai smiled. Zuko’s eyes stung with the threat of tears, but he knew better than to cry. 

Still, as the hands of sadness curled around his heart, he chewed his bottom lip and rubbed his fingers together under the table, tiny embers fluttering out from the friction. 

“What are you doing? How many times do I have to tell you not to put your hands under the table?” Ozai growled as his large, calloused hand gripped Zuko’s wrist so tight he could feel his own pulse throbbing just below his skin. 

His hands were hot, but again, Zuko remained silent. He swallowed down his sadness and anger and fear and the embers of hatred, and the pressure building inside him rose, if only just. 

Deep down, he wondered how many more years of _this_ he could take. Was this going to be his life? 

No. 

He’d die before that happened. Still, maybe that thought was what kept him clinging to his pathetic life. 

‘If I kill myself, what will Mother do?’

The idea of his father’s disappointment in him if he were to end his own life made his chest ache and his stomach churn. He wouldn’t just be a disgrace to his nation, marring it’s powerful legacy with his _cowardice_ , it would be the ultimate act of self-disgrace in the eyes of his father. 

The shame made him want to be sick, and his appetite sunk down into nothing and disappeared in the sea of nausea that made up his stomach. 

For the rest of the meal, all he could bring himself to do was pick at his food. 

His mother cleared her throat and placed her warm hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong honey? Are you not hungry? You usually love this.”

“I’m fine mom. I just...feel a little sick, I guess,” Zuko said. 

Ursa’s lips pressed into a frown. “You want to go to bed?”

Ozai glared at him. “Um...I’ll practice my firebending forms a bit, I think.”

He breathed a tiny sigh of relief when he felt Ozai’s burning gaze boring into him no longer. 

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

“What do you ask?” Ozai’s voice was like thunder and lightning both at once.

Zuko froze and searched through the countless mental scripts he kept filed in his brain, the supports he knew he could lean on when he didn’t know what to say. He loved each and every one of the little templates he’d hand-crafted and perfected based on previous social interactions. 

“Ah...c-can I be excused?”

Ozai glared at him for several moments before nodding. “Get out of my sight.”

Zuko nodded too, climbing down from his chair and excusing himself from the dining room. He meandered down the big red halls, arm out and hands pressed against the smooth pillars carved into wall. They radiated a strange warmth, as if the same flame that lived inside his body also lived in them, the feeling of the stone against his palm and fingers tingling as if it was moving. 

Zuko entered his bedroom and closed the big doors before moving to the center of his room, drawing in a deep breath. Every good firebender knew that their fire was powered by their own breath. 

He took a moment to collect himself and let the memory etched into his muscles carry him, moving his body and drawing the flames out from his hands. They were small and weak, but he remembered his mother’s reassurance on how he would improve with practice. Firebending was an art, ancient and sacred, carried through the veins of countless millions before him.

As he practiced, he heard his father’s voice echoing in his mind. 

“Failure.“

“Disappointment.”

“Why can’t you be more like your sister?”

“You put me to shame.”

As though pulled from thin air, a large blast of fire shot from his fingers and singed the massive red curtain on his wall. 

Zuko cringed as he looked at the burnt curtain before staring down at his own hands in amazement. 

“Was that...me?” He breathed to nobody in particular.

He repeated the form, replaying it frame by frame in his mind as he’d seen Azula do it before. As usual, his fire was small and weak, barely above the dim flicker of the candles that lit up his room. 

Zuko couldn’t help but wonder if it was the thoughts that caused it. 

“There’s no harm in testing it out,” he told himself.

“Coward.”

“Get out of my sight.”

“You were lucky to have been born.”

“Disgrace.”

Zuko let out a loud shout as he repeated the previous form, another cloud of fire billowing out from his palm. 

Despite the anger stirring in his chest, a smile pulled at the corners of his lips, and the muscles in his cheeks ached from how hard he was grinning at the realization he’d just uncovered. 

Fire came from rage. It came from anger and hatred, and the desire to unleash it as it boiled up from whatever terrible place it came. 

Maybe that was why Azula’s fire was so much stronger than his.

For now.

  


* * *

  


Things changed after Ursa disappeared. _Everything_ was different without her around. For years, Zuko had relied on her to provide the love Ozai had never given him, and to defend him when he was too scared of the consequences.

And now, she was gone. Disappeared without a trace. All his attempts at getting an answer out of his father fell flat, and his terrible anger quickly deterred Zuko from looking too much deeper into it. Ozai was anything _but_ stupid; Zuko knew that he’d do his best to conceal any trace of what had happened to Ursa. 

A loud knock rattled against his door, sending a bolt of terror shooting through him and turning his blood to ice. 

“Huang,” Ozai’s deep, angry voice rumbled as the door swung open, casting a long, jagged shadow that cut Zuko in half across the floor.

“Y-Yes?”

“Come with me. You have an appointment with Dr. Wei.”

“Dr. Wei? But why? I’m not sick,” Zuko retorted. 

“Yes you are. Come here. Now,” Ozai spat. 

Zuko nodded and rose to his feet, legs trembling. 

Ozai had lied, but Zuko was once again backed into a corner. In a twist of bitter irony, his situation could be likened to a frog being slowly boiled alive. 

“Things are going to change around here now that that _woman_ is gone. For one, I’m going to fix you.”

“Fix me?” Zuko asked. What about him needed fixing, he wondered. Perhaps it was the ‘weird’ traits of his that his father seemed to relish in singling out; traits Azula didn’t have and that could be considered abnormal if it weren’t for the rules of being a human so numerous, so convoluted, and so strictly enforced. 

“I aim to make you into the person your mother never could. You should be thanking me,” Ozai said as the two continued to make their way down the winding hallways of the Fire Nation palace. At the time, it had seemed impossibly massive, as if it were expanding every time someone dared try and conquer its labyrinth.

Down a hallway that looked the same as all the others was the office of the palace’s live-in physician, Dr. Wei. Ozai rapped on the door, and a shaking voice came from behind it. 

“Coming!”

Footsteps, and then the door creaked open. 

Ozai pushed Zuko through the doorway. “You are to follow through with my orders completely, until my daughter learns how to behave _properly_ ,” he spat the last word as though it were poison in his mouth.

“Father, wait!” Zuko cried as Ozai closed the door. 

Dr. Wei sighed and placed his hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s start. We’re going to focus on fixing your...twitchiness.”

“What?” Zuko looked up at Dr. Wei, golden eyes wide with terror.

“Your father wants us to work on your issues, and he told me to start with your constant fidgeting. Apparently, it’s driving him crazy, and it makes you look like a fool in front of him and his associates,” Dr. Wei told him. 

Zuko wanted to cry, chewing his bottom lip as he tapped his foot against the floor.

  


* * *

  


“How was it?” Ozai asked. 

Zuko poked at his food with his chopsticks. “How was what?”

“Don’t play dumb. Your session with Dr. Wei.”

The memory swirled in his mind like ripples through a pool. 

He was seated on one side of a table, Dr. Wei on the other. Dr. Wei started a conversation that seemed innocent enough, but Zuko knew it wasn’t. 

Nothing ever was. 

And sure enough, he was right. As the discussion progressed, Dr. Wei scribbled down unknown notes into a small, leather-bound notebook held close to his chest, positioned so that Zuko couldn’t see what he was writing. 

And then it started. Zuko was talking about a book he’d just read—eyes bright with wonder, hands and fingers drumming against the wood of the table—when it struck him. Beneath the table, a small but painful jolt of electricity entered his body from behind and climbed up his spine, making him shudder as his muscles tensed. The sharp pain filling his body lasted for just a few moments, but the pain and the tension made it feel more like minutes. 

“That hurt! What...what was that?” Zuko asked when he knew he’d be able to talk again. 

“You should sit still and mind your manners when talking with others, especially adults.”

“But...I’m excited!”

Dr. Wei pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, and adults show excitement through tone, voice pitch, and facial expression, _not_ through...whatever that is.”

“Are you gonna shock me every time I do something you don’t like?” Zuko asked. 

“I don’t like your tone, and yes. I’ll do it as much as it takes. Lord Ozai’s orders,” Dr. Wei replied. Ozai had told him to get rid of Zuko’s problematic behavior as soon as he could.

Sadness rose into Zuko’s throat, burning his eyes and sending a dull spike of pain through his jaw. His lower lip trembled, and he choked back a sob. “Why? Does he not love me as I am?”

Dr. Wei didn’t respond. “Come on. We aren’t even close to being done for today.”

After several painful hours of what could barely qualify as any kind of medical treatment, Zuko’s muscles sparked with tension, and his entire body throbbed with a dull ache. Any semblance of hunger had long since left him, and he decided to retire to his room for the night instead of going to dinner. 

Upon doing so, he noticed someone exiting his bathroom. It was his uncle, Iroh, a renowned and respected war hero who’d recently retired after having lost his only son in the war. 

“Ah, Huang. Sorry to scare you; I was just drawing a bath for you. You must be tired after today, yes?”

“Huh? Oh, I mean...I guess.”

Iroh smiled, a deep sadness flickering in his eyes that matched the one Zuko had seen in the days that directly followed his return from the battlefield. “Why don’t you go take a bath? It may help your muscles relax a little.” 

“Thanks, Iroh.”

Iroh laughed and shook his head. “Please, call me uncle.”

“Thanks...uncle Iroh,” Zuko said. 

“No problem. I’ll leave you alone now,” Iroh made for the door and left. 

Zuko stared at the closed door for several moments before entering his bathroom, a cloud of steam bursting forth from the open door and surrounding him. He did his best to wave it away as he gingerly stuck his foot into the water of the massive tub. It was pleasantly warm and filled with bubbles, and a faint herbal smell wafted up from the water. It almost made Zuko wonder if Iroh had been pulling his leg and the water was really just a huge vat of the green tea he seemed to love so much. 

That was stupid, and he laughed at the idea as he stepped into the water. He let out a pleased sigh as he submerged himself in its warmth, his black hair clinging to his back like a river of ink. 

After his bath, Zuko changed into his nightclothes and climbed into bed. He stared up at the silver moon that hung in the sky above, visible from the window on his wall a few feet away. As he focused on the white beam of light trickling through the glass and covering him like an extra blanket, his eyelids grew heavy and his consciousness began to slip as he fell into sleep.

  


* * *

  


It had been almost two years since Zuko had started ‘treatment’ for his supposed ‘problem’. Ozai sat before him, watching with fiery intent as Zuko’s sure hand pulled the calligraphy ink across the page. All the while, his body remained still, his left hand holding the paper and his legs tucked beneath him, acting the part of the poised and dignified child Ozai had always wanted him to be. 

“How did I do, father?”

“Your writing is still sloppy. Ask Dr. Wei to help you with it, unless you want to be known forever as the illiterate daughter. Azula’s writing is impeccable. Catch up or be left behind.”

Zuko nodded, the pain of being compared to his sister sending a pang of sadness through his chest. 

Anything to be loved by Ozai. Anything to get the same praise Azula did; anything to win one of his father’s increasingly rare smiles. 

Even just a ‘good job’ or ‘I’m proud of you’ would suffice, and the part of him that clutched all of his childhood trauma close to his chest as if clinging to it like a child to its mother yearned for his father’s love. Even after thirteen years of being alive, not once had his father given him the love he needed. 

His room had always been a sanctuary, quiet and peaceful. It was but a tiny island of respite in the chaotic, stormy ocean of his life. 

Zuko closed the door behind him and fell onto his bed, screaming into the pile of blankets. His entire body buzzed with sparks of negative energy, and he slid down the side of his bed and onto the cold floor. 

“Why am I never good enough?!” He hissed to himself as he rose to his feet. The candles in his room roared to life in pillars of flame, but even their rage was little consolation. 

What was he supposed to do now? His body trembled with the anger and sadness and shame and rage overflowing from his heart, but there was nowhere for it to go. All the things he’d previously done to keep his emotions in check had been taken from him.

He had nothing left. There was no way to be rid of the horrible throbbing, squeezing, sharp feeling that pierced his chest like a thousand needles every time he breathed. His knees trembled, and much to his shame, gave out beneath him, sending him back onto the cold floor of his bedroom. 

The fire from his palms was so hot, the edges flickered blue and scorched a black, ashen swath into the floor below. Hot tears rolled down his cheeks, and a voice came muffled from behind the door. 

“Huang?”

His breath burned. “Go away, uncle!” He shouted, voice breaking. He could picture Iroh’s face, kind and gentle and creased with telltale signs of his age. 

Somehow, it only made him cry harder. Why did Iroh love him and Ozai didn’t? Why did a man who’d barely seen him for most of his childhood treat him as his own, and his own father never so much as gave him a second thought? 

What had he done to deserve such contempt?

Even after almost two years of daily agony, he still wasn’t the person his father wanted. Dr. Wei had failed to shape him into someone Ozai could love. No matter how hard he tried not to fidget and to write neatly and to perfect his firebending and not to have breakdowns and to look people in the eyes when he spoke to them, it wasn’t enough. Even after all the time he’d spent being broken into a person he wasn’t, his father extinguishing all the traits in him that he found undesirable, it wasn’t enough. 

“What will it take to make father love me?” Zuko asked himself beneath a shuddering breath.

He fell asleep on the cold marble floor of his bedroom, too exhausted to bother moving. The pain in his back and shoulders he woke up with was nothing compared to the one burning holes in his paper heart.

  


* * *

  


“Get out of my palace. You’re a _disgrace_.”

“Please father, just let me collect my things and—”

Ozai cut him off. “No. Out. Now. Remember what I said? You can come back when you find the Avatar.”

A voice came from behind Ozai. “Princess Huang, let’s go. Don’t worry about your things; I packed some essentials for the both of us.”

Ozai turned around and glared down at his brother. “What?”

Zuko stood before the doorway, trembling, the pain radiating from the area around his left eye scrunching up the rest of his face. 

“If you’re kicking her out, I’m going too,” Iroh said as he jabbed a finger against Ozai’s chest. “I’m not letting my niece go alone.”

Ozai scoffed, “you’re just like her. I can’t believe Azulon wanted to make _you_ the next Fire Lord. You’re nothing but a coward, too blinded by the death of your only son to see straight.”

And for the first time in his life, Zuko saw it. 

Iroh’s rage. 

He shuddered. For the longest time, his jovial and gregarious uncle had been so far separated from the powerful and terrifying general at the siege of Ba Sing Se—especially around Zuko—but now he saw it; he saw the fire in Iroh’s eyes. 

Still, it was different from Ozai’s. His was cold and dark, empty of all but hatred and the desire to exert his iron will over others, but Iroh’s was filled with passion and the need to protect Zuko. It lacked any of the malice Zuko had seen a thousand times over in the eyes of his father, malice that he so apparently lacked. 

That was the vast ocean of difference between those two sides of the same coin; the difference between a human and a monster. 

Zuko realized then the line he was toeing, the two dragons at war within him. Icy fear gripped his chest at the thought of becoming like his father. They shared more blood than he and Iroh did, after all. 

“Huang. Let’s go,” Iroh’s voice was laced with bitterness as he turned to leave. Zuko nodded and slipped past Ozai, his aura a black fire. 

He came up beside Iroh as the two of them walked down the ominous, silent hall, Ozai’s dark presence at the very end, burning and imposing. 

“Uncle, why—”

Iroh raised a finger in a shushing motion. “We’ll talk later. Let’s just leave. How is your burn doing?”

“It hurts. A lot.”

Iroh offered a sympathetic nod. “You will probably have a scar for the rest of your life.”

Zuko sighed. The thought made his brain feel as though it were clouded with smoke. 

He would have to wear his defeat at the Agni Kai for the rest of his life. As he walked, legs numb, the shame devoured him like the darkness of night, and he wondered how he could muster the courage to show his face ever again. 

“I know. The doctors already told me.”

They were silent as they made their way out of the arched palace doorway, descending the marble steps for the last time in years. 

“What should we do?”

“It shouldn’t be too hard to get my hands on an old Navy ship. I still have a few men who support and respect me, and who were with me at the siege of Ba Sing Se,” Iroh said. 

“Fine. Whatever. As long as we don’t do anything to upset my father,” Zuko huffed. 

Iroh laughed. “I assure you, we won’t.”

Zuko was just going to have to trust him.

“Okay.”

  


* * *

  


Zuko stared up at the white clouds inching lazily past in the sky above, and the feeling of the wind against the exposed right side of his face blew an idea into his mind. 

“Uncle.”

“Hm?”

“You know the Avatar, right?” Zuko asked. 

“Huang, are you sure you want to do this?”

“I asked you a question. I want to know the answer.” Zuko commanded.

Iroh gave him a quizzical glance, eyes narrowed and eyebrows raised. “I don’t know them, but I know _about_ them.”

Zuko’s eyes widened. “Tell me everything.”

Iroh sighed. “I don’t know too much, unfortunately. It’s been nearly a hundred years since anyone heard from them. Many people think the Avatar cycle is broken, which seems likely. The Avatar has existed for thousands of years, and every time they die, they’re reincarnated as someone else. Basically—”

“I already know that,” Zuko snapped. “Get to the point.”

“Well, the last Avatar was Avatar Roku, a firebender, meaning that, if the cycle was to continue, the newest one would’ve been an Air Nomad, but...”

“The Air Nomads were completely wiped out ninety-seven years ago...supposedly,” Zuko finished his uncle’s sentence.

Iroh sighed. “I’m afraid so. Besides, like I said, nobody has seen or heard from the Avatar in ninety-seven years. It’s safe to assume they died. The next nation in the cycle is the Water Tribe, but there’s no proof that the Avatar cycle continued. I’m sorry, Huang.”

Zuko sat quietly for several moments, the thoughts in his mind tumbling like a stone in the waves before he rose from his seat. “I don’t care. Set a course for the Western Air Temple. We won’t know whether or not the Avatar is alive if we don’t search. I’ll scour every corner of the world if I have to. If they are still alive, they’ll be very old, but...I need to try.”

Iroh’s heart broke for his nephew. He knew all Zuko wanted was his father’s love and approval, and the desperation seeping through in his voice was obvious, despite his attempts to hide it. It was impossible to imagine what was going on inside him right now, but even the thought of it made him want to cry. 

“You should take it easy. You’re hurt,” Iroh said as he placed a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. 

Zuko shrugged his hand off and slapped it away. “Don’t touch me! Mind your business and set. a. course. for. the. Western. Air. Temple.”

Iroh watched as Zuko left the deck, slamming the metal door behind him. He waited until his nephew’s footsteps were no longer audible and left to tell the captain to change their course for the Western Air Temple. 

That night, he didn’t see Zuko at dinner, despite having invited him multiple times. After he finished, he went to check on Zuko. 

“Niece?” Iroh said softly as he knocked against his nephew’s door. “My men and I are having a game night in the meeting room. Do you want to join us?”

No response. 

“You don’t have to, but...we’d love to have you.”

Something slammed against the metal door. “No. What did I say? Fuck off,” Zuko’s muffled voice came from somewhere inside the room. 

Zuko stared at himself in the mirror, his single functioning eye scanning the shape of his own body in disgust. 

He’d never thought about it before, but now that he passed the countless long hours at sea staring up at the gray metal ceiling of his small room that could barely pass for a bedroom, he’d had a lot more time to think. 

Of course, he’d been putting the thought out of his mind for as long as he could, but it had become more difficult to ignore as time passed. Instead of considering the implications of his troubling thoughts, he simply brushed them off as the new consciousness of how his face looked. 

He’d deal with it some other time.

  


* * *

  


“Uncle, there’s...there’s something I need to tell you.” Zuko’s voice came thin and tired from the other side of the door. 

“Come in,” Iroh said. 

Zuko opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him with a quiet click. 

Iroh couldn’t help but note the way his face was twisted in anger, a sad bitterness below it that shone through in his eyes. His body trembled beneath his clothes, askew and awkward on a body that wasn’t meant to bear them. The long, inky black hair his father had forbidden him from cutting was tied into a loose ponytail that fell down his back. 

“Please, sit,” Iroh told him. 

Zuko did as he was told and took a seat on one of the red floor cushions, folding his legs underneath him. “Uncle, I...” he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, hands folded in his lap. 

“What is it? You can tell me whatever you’d like, Princess Huang. I will not judge you.”

Zuko’s jaw tightened at the use of that name and title. “I...can you...can you keep a secret?”

Iroh raised his eyebrows. “Did your father do something to you that I don’t know about?”

An exasperated sigh fell from Zuko’s lips, and he shook his head. “Besides permanently fucking up my face, no. Are you going to answer my question?”

“What’s said here stays here,” Iroh reassured, and Zuko let out a quiet, relieved breath. 

“In that case, I...I think I’m actually a guy,” he admitted, the confession burning the back of his throat as though he’d swallowed hot coal.

“Oh. So you’re transgender?” Iroh asked casually.

“Trans...gender?” Zuko cocked his head. 

“Mhmm. It means that the gender you were assigned when you were born and your actual gender don’t match.”

“I see...” Zuko sat as still as he could, the painful memory of lightning shooting through his muscles and paralyzing him returning as the temptation to tap his fingers against the table washed over him in full force. 

He wanted to cry. “I guess I am.”

“Would you like to be called by a new name?” Iroh questioned, a warm smile pulling at his lips as he poured two cups of tea and slid one across the table to his nephew. 

“Yes!” Zuko sat up as the fire returned to his eyes. 

Iroh laughed and nodded. His chest swelled with joy at seeing the hopeful sparkle in Zuko’s eyes, one he hadn’t seen in ages and one he’d believed he’d never see again. “What do you want me to call you?”

“I’ve thought about it a lot, and...my name is Zuko now. I’m not sure what led me to choose it, but...”

“Prince Zuko, hm? How’s it written?”

Zuko couldn’t help but smile. “It...feels good to be called that, and it’s written phonetically.” Having a name that was a blank slate, a white canvas that he could paint his own meaning on and have it be his own was exhilarating. It was his first small, shaky step in breaking free of Ozai’s chains.

“What pronouns should I use for you? He/him?”

“Yes. I’m your nephew now, right?”

Iroh finished off his cup of tea and nodded. “Of course you are.”

Zuko’s smile faltered, “father always said I acted too much like a boy. When Azula caught me trying on father’s old clothes, he scolded me and said he wouldn’t have one of his daughters grow up to be...” he paused, remembering the word but not wanting to say it. 

“You are a boy, Zuko. Your father simply didn’t want to face the reality that another one of his family members could possibly be transgender or queer,” Iroh said. 

Zuko raised his eyebrows. “Another...?”

Iroh nodded. “Me.”

Zuko stared at him, wide-eyed in surprise. “Y-you?” 

“I think it’s time I told you...” he paused for a moment before continuing, “like you, I’m transgender. Of course, I transitioned a very long time ago, before you were even born. It made your father very angry, but I couldn’t keep living a lie,” Iroh explained. 

“Father was angry with you?”

Iroh laughed and nodded. “Oh yes, he was furious. For years, he teased me and called me names. Between you and me,” he paused, glancing around the small room before leaning across the table and whispering to Zuko, “I think he was just jealous I got a beard before he did.”

Zuko knew what that meant for him. He knew that if he came out to his father, word of his identity would spread like wildfire and become the talk of the entire nation. 

As if on cue, Iroh moved in to reassure his nephew. “Don’t worry about what he thinks.”

“You don’t understand. I’m his _son_ ; you’re just his brother. You don’t know what it’s like. For sixteen years, he’s thought of me as his daughter. I don’t know if he’ll accept me for who I am even if I _do_ somehow manage to bring him the Avatar...” Zuko said as his voice shook. 

Iroh nodded sympathetically. “I understand. Your father is not an accepting person. He ignores our nation’s proud history of accepting queer and transgender people. Many of our Avatars, heroes, legendary figures, and other highly-respected people were queer or trans, sometimes both. Avatar Roku was bisexual, but you won’t read that in the history books.”

“What?” Zuko stared at him in disbelief. 

“Where do I even begin?” Iroh mumbled as he poured himself a second cup of tea, “our nation has a long history of acceptance, despite what some may say.” He stopped and took a long sip of his tea. “When Sozin took the throne, however, he made queer relationships illegal and passed laws that made transitioning much more difficult. Additionally, he banned teaching anything related to that kind of thing in schools, even from a historical standpoint. The new curricula he wrote completely ignored the wide range of genders and sexualities that people had accepted in the past, and anyone who challenged his word was ‘dealt with’.”

“So...Fire Lord Sozin rewrote history?”

Iroh nodded. “More or less. Everything we’re taught in school is centered around his rise to power. Many of our citizens still truly believe that Sozin made our nation better. We’re taught that our own history began with him, but I know better. People like us have existed throughout all of time, Zuko. When your father is no longer Fire Lord, he’ll be remembered as having been on the wrong side of history for not accepting you.“

“That’s not any solace,” Zuko said as he folded his arms across his chest. 

“I know. I’m sorry, my nephew. I wish things weren’t as they were.”

For some reason, Zuko wanted to cry. “Me too.”

  


* * *

  


“Hey uncle...I think......IthinkI’mgay,” Zuko muttered. 

“What was that last part?” Iroh questioned, lips pressed into a teasing smirk. 

“I think....I’mgay.......” Zuko repeated, quieter this time. 

“Come on, Zuko. My old ears don’t work as well as they used to!” Iroh laughed, deep and bubbling like a stream. 

Zuko’s hands clenched into fists, and his nails dug into the calloused skin of his palms. “I think I might be gay!” He repeated, voice edged in annoyance. 

Iroh took a long sip of his tea. “Is that it?”

“What do you mean, ‘is that it’?!”

“Was that what you’ve been wanting to get off your chest?” 

“I—” heat like his flames crept into Zuko’s cheeks. “It is...or...was, I guess.”

“You know I’ll accept you for whoever you are, regardless of who you love,” Iroh said. 

Zuko paused. “I know.”

The two sat in silence for a moment before Zuko spoke up again. 

“What about you?” He asked, glad that his embarrassed blush was well-hidden beneath the cover of darkness. 

“What about me?” Iroh replied. 

“Are you...straight?”

Iroh laughed. “I don’t label myself, but I also don’t think gender matters very much when it comes to the people I like.”

Subconsciously, Zuko’s foot began to shake. The memory of being shocked again returned to him, crashing into his mind like a wave. He stopped, the familiar, sparking phantom pain coursing through his muscles. Terror swallowed his ability to speak, so all he could do was nod weakly and hope Iroh saw him through the curtain of blackness that covered them.

“Also, since we’re on the topic, I wanted to ask,” Iroh paused, and Zuko heard the sound of tea being poured into a cup, “how do you feel about transition?”

Somehow, he found his voice again, clawing at the back of his throat. “I want to. I want to take testosterone and get top surgery, but…”

“But…?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just hate change. But I also hate this body. I just want to feel good about myself for once.”

Iroh knew Zuko hated change because of his disorder. 

“I know someone who can help you.”

Zuko propped himself up onto his elbows. “What?”

“I know someone who can help you with your transition. They helped me with mine, and the two of us are...close,” Iroh said. 

Zuko looked at him. “What do you mean, ‘close’? Can you quit being vague and just tell it to me straight.”

Iroh shook his head, a smile spreading across his lips. “No, but I can tell it to you queer.”

Zuko groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why do I bother?” He muttered to himself under his breath.

Iroh laughed, loud and from his stomach. 

“I’m serious!” Zuko spat, the fire before them extending its orange fingers up towards the sky. “You’re so annoying! I can never talk with you and I hate it! I’m going for a walk. Don’t follow me,” he commanded as he rose to his feet and produced a small flame in his palm to act as a torch. He stepped over the fallen log he’d been sitting on and headed into the forest. Sticks and leaves crunched beneath his boots as he meandered down a natural, weaving path created by gaps in the undergrowth. It was quiet and peaceful, and the soft night sounds of wind rattling the leaves in the trees and various creatures blended into a calming symphony that enveloped him as he walked. 

Still, Zuko knew better than to let his guard down. He kept his eye out for any signs of the Avatar, the thing that possessed his mind and occupied his every waking thought. His dreams were filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of home. 

What he would give to sleep in his own bed again, to taste a freshly-cooked Fire Nation meal, to have Ozai finally give him the love he wanted so desperately.

If capturing the Avatar was what it would take, then he would do it. He’d die before he let anyone else take Aang for themselves. 

He continued to wander through the forest until he came upon a small stream and sat on the rocky bank beside it. The clear water bubbled like a blanket of rippling diamonds further down into the forest, disappearing into the gaping maw of darkness.

He liked it here, and for a moment, he considered relaxing. 

But there was no relaxing in a haunted mind. He found himself turning over a small, smooth stone in his hand, enjoying the cool feeling against the ever-present warmth of his skin. 

And then he froze. He was doing it again. The memory that lingered in his mind like a stubborn, aimless ghost assaulted him and filled his body with phantom pain. 

A tear rolled down his cheek and fell into the stream, tiny ripples rushing across the glittering surface. 

Ozai had changed so much about him. He’d intentionally burned away traits that Zuko didn’t mind in himself. Traits that Zuko couldn’t help, traits that were a part of who he was because of his disability. 

And what did he have to show for it? Did Ozai love him? Had he been shaped into a better person? Was he a more capable future Fire Lord?

No. 

“Zuko, there you are,” Iroh’s voice came from behind him, and terror wrapped its tendrils around him. How had he managed to sneak up on him?

“Are you feeling okay? About earlier, I’m sorry. You were right,” Iroh said as he sat down on the rocks beside his nephew. “I should be more direct.”

Nothing. 

“Zuko?”

“Uncle. Sorry, I...don’t know what came over me. I guess I just...I don’t know.”

Iroh frowned and leaned in. “Can I touch you?”

Zuko nodded, and Iroh’s strong arms wrapped around him. He pressed his face into Iroh’s shirt as his shoulders trembled, his body wracked with sobs. Iroh’s warm hands rubbed circles into his back as Zuko cried, his hands instinctively clutching at Iroh’s shirt as if he were a child. 

Iroh cleared his throat and glanced down at his nephew. 

So much like Lu Ten. The thought made Iroh’s heart ache. He remembered the times he’d held his little boy like this, wishing that his last could've been on the battlefield.

He remembered the song he wished he could have sang, had he been there. 

Iroh only just realized that the words came back to him as he held Zuko, the son that Lu Ten didn’t get to be. 

“Leaves from the vine, falling so slow…”

Zuko’s breath caught in his throat. 

“Like fragile tiny shells, drifting in the foam…”

He hugged Zuko a little tighter. No matter what happened, he’d never let someone he loved slip through his fingers again. 

“Little soldier boy, come marching home…”

His nephew’s breath evened out, if only a little. 

“Brave soldier boy, comes marching home.”

Iroh stroked Zuko’s hair as he finished crying. It was a horrible sight, and Iroh swore to himself he’d do everything he could to heal the wounds left behind by Ozai. 

He would be the father Ozai wasn’t. The father Zuko needed, steadfast and kind, with open arms and an open heart, ready to accept his nephew whenever he needed, regardless of how he acted or what he did.

“Uncle…”

“Hm?” 

“Thanks.”

A tear rolled down Iroh’s cheek. “You’re welcome, Zuko.”

“You can let go of me now,” Zuko said. 

“Right, sorry,” Iroh mumbled as he let go of Zuko. 

Zuko sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “We should head back to camp. Being out here for too long is dangerous.” 

“You’re right.”

The walk back was quiet, the two of them using their fire to light the way through the thick forest overgrowth that ran wild beneath their feet, untamed from years of little contact with humans.

“What...was it you were mentioning earlier? You said you knew someone who could help me with my transition. I...I want to start. I don’t want to spend my whole life stuck in the same place I’ve always been…”

Iroh sighed. That was just it. If only he could realize that was what he was _already_ doing. He’d spent so long chasing the Avatar that he’d lost sight of what life should be. He’d spent so long wandering in the darkness, Iroh wondered if he’d still be able to pull Zuko out. 

He would do it. He would put the pieces together, even if it was messy and full of heartbreak. He knew Zuko. All he needed was a little push in the right direction. 

“Yes. An old friend of mine runs a transition clinic out of their home. They’re basically your only hope, but…”

Zuko groaned and kicked a rock across the underbrush and into the trees. “Damn it! Why did Fire Lord Sozin hate us so much? I don’t understand.”

“People will always hate what they can’t understand.”

Zuko looked at him, a sharp jolt of pain shooting through his chest. 

Ozai was no different. 

Was it that he didn’t understand, or he didn’t care? Maybe he just didn’t _want_ to understand. Whatever part of him that was cut off from humanity; whatever part of him stared into the gaping abyss of his own monstrosity, it didn’t want to understand. 

It could, but it didn’t want to. 

Again, Zuko’s anger threatened to boil over. The thought of killing Ozai passed over his mind like a dark cloud, sending a blissful shot of euphoria through him. 

But what would it fix? He’d send his father to his grave without any triumph. The emptiness he knew he’d feel afterwards rang out through the hole in his chest, and the euphoria melted away as quickly as it had come. 

“There’s an old saying…‘the nail that sticks out gets hammered down’.”

“What?”

Hammering. Was that it?

“You know about how it feels too, then,” Zuko muttered. 

Iroh’s expression was unreadable. “Of course I know, nephew. Why do you think I went with you?”

Iroh was more of his father than Ozai would ever be, but accepting it was daunting. It bordered on impossible, even. 

Somehow, he felt tired. “We can talk tomorrow. I don’t feel well. Let’s just go back to camp and get some sleep for the night.”

  


* * *

  


“Zuko, there’s something I should’ve told you a long time ago.”

Hearing that turned the blood in his veins to ice, but he simply glared at Iroh. “Well? Say it. I don’t have all day.”

Iroh took a seat beside Zuko, tea in hand. 

“I’m sure you remember the day your father revealed your diagnosis to you, right?”

A bitter laugh fell from Zuko’s lips. “How could I forget? It was only the third worst day of my life.”

Iroh was silent for several moments as he collected his thoughts. “Well...what your father failed to tell you is that ‘self-obstruction syndrome’ can be hereditary.”

“What?!” Zuko’s back straightened and his eyebrows furrowed. “Is he—”

Iroh laughed and shook his head. “No, no. Not your father. Me.”

“You?! Uncle—I...fucking hell, you...you kept so many secrets from me...why? I thought I could trust you.” He said, voice threatening to break at any moment as though it were made of thin glass. 

“Zuko, please. Listen. I didn’t tell you because I could never find the right time. I didn’t want to stress you out or upset you, especially when you were going through such a hard time. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

Zuko sighed. “Fine. Whatever. Just tell me what you wanted to say.”

“I have the same disorder you do. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was more than twice your age, though. Things were much different when I was a boy,” Iroh told him. “Honestly, I was happy. It felt like I had been walking around in a dark room all my life, and someone finally turned on the light. I never told your father or my father either, but...I trust you to keep my secret,” he said with a kind smile that sparkled in his eyes. 

“What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you got diagnosed?”

“Nothing,” Iroh said. 

Zuko’s aloof expression fell, and in the light of the fire that danced across both of their faces, Iroh could see his jaw tighten and his lower lip tremble, albeit barely. He seemed as though he was about to cry.

Zuko told himself that it was stupid to believe he and Iroh would’ve receieved the same treatment. 

“If it helps any, I spent most of my life wondering what was wrong with me. I guess you’d probably know how it feels.”

“It’s like you’re out of place,” Zuko said. 

Iroh turned to look at him. He sat with his legs folded beneath him, balled fists resting against his knees and body shaking. 

“Like you’re a brick that doesn’t quite fit in to the rest of the wall, or like you’re standing behind a glass pane that everyone else is in front of.”

“Yes. I felt like that for my whole life. I assumed it was because of my gender, but even after I’d transitioned, the feeling still lingered. I struggled to understand it until I finally got diagnosed, and then everything made a lot more sense,” Iroh explained.

“Then how come you don’t…” he stopped, searching for the words but coming up empty. 

Iroh sighed. “I used to. When I was a kid. My father never did what your father did, but his constant shaming and the belittling I received from others quickly put me in my place. I learned how to act ‘normal’, or...at least to act in a way that wouldn’t make me stick out. It’s like I said earlier—”

Zuko cut him off. “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”

“Exactly. It’s one of those things where you have no choice but to adapt. I call it ‘masking’, because it’s kind of like wearing a mask in order to disguise your true self and to blend in with others. I’ve done it my whole life, so I learned things you didn’t.”

“How can I do it? I want to be normal,” the pleading in Zuko’s voice made Iroh’s heart throb painfully in his chest. 

“You already do, even if you don’t realize.”

Iroh was right. 

Like always. 

He’d found his own ways to deal with things, like rehearsing conversations and scripting out scenarios before they happened, or looking at people’s foreheads instead of their eyes, or channeling his anger into his bending to keep from having a meltdown. 

It was just another way of surviving. A small act of resistance, really, but it still felt nice. 

“I think I understand a little better now. Thanks, uncle.”

  


* * *

  


“Why are we here? I thought we were supposed to be going to work,” Zuko said as he meandered through the narrow, crowded streets of Ba Sing Se’s outer ring, struggling to keep up with Iroh.

“There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Can it wait?”

Iroh looked at Zuko. “You want to start your transition, don’t you?”

“More than anything,” Zuko told him. 

“Well then, we’re going to visit the person who helped me with mine. It’s just down the road a bit.”

Zuko sighed but followed close behind as the two of them slipped into an alleyway and crossed a small, dusty street onto another road, coming up to a small wooden building sandwiched between a noodle shop and a bathhouse. Iroh knocked on the door, and the wooden peephole slot in the door slid open. 

“Who is it?”

“Just a humble retired military general traveling through with his nephew.” Iroh responded teasingly. 

The slot slammed closed only for the door to suddenly fling open. 

“Iroh!” A tall person who seemed to be around Iroh’s age ran out to hug him. They wore a white doctor’s coat and a green robe beneath that matched their jade eyes framed by rectangular glasses, their age-whitened hair pulled back into a shoulder-length ponytail.

The deep smile lines carved into Iroh’s face pulled taught as he hugged the mysterious stranger, the two locked standing in an embrace for several moments before the stranger glanced over at Zuko. 

“Oh, is this your nephew?”

Iroh nodded. 

“Zuko, this is my friend, Yu.”

Zuko cleared his throat and gave a small but polite bow. “Hello. I...guess my uncle’s already told you about me.”

Yu nodded and returned Zuko’s gesture of greeting. “Only good things, I assure you. Last time we saw each other, your uncle damn near talked my ear off about you.”

Iroh laughed, arm still draped over Yu’s shoulder. 

“Come, let’s go inside. I don’t want to loiter around out here too much,” Yu said, their tone changing to a more urgent one. 

Iroh motioned for Zuko to follow, and the three of them entered the small, cramped wooden hallway that led to Yu’s home-turned-clinic. 

“So...uh…” Zuko took off his boots and placed them beside the door. Iroh and Yu did the same, all the while exchanging tender glances and warm smiles. “How...exactly did you meet…?”

“It’s kind of a long story. Let’s go upstairs and we can chat,” Yu said. 

The hallway opened up into a small yet comfortable seating area, with another hallway to the left and two rooms on the right. Framed paintings hung on the wall, all showing Yu and smiling, happy-looking people that Zuko didn’t recognize. Directly across from the hallway was an old wooden staircase that the three of them ascended up to a cozy rooftop apartment. 

“I’m sorry, Iroh. Had I known you would be stopping by, I would’ve put a pot of tea on,” Yu said as they entered the kitchen. 

“Still, you should sit down. Make yourselves at home. What’s mine is yours and that sort of thing.” Yu went to the kitchen and retrieved a kettle of water. 

“Would you be so kind, Iroh?” 

“Of course,” Iroh replied. He took the kettle from Yu and held it for several seconds, channeling the heat from his firebending into the water. 

Zuko couldn’t have prepared himself for what happened next. Yu took the kettle as they leaned down and pressed a quick kiss against Iroh’s lips. 

“It’s been too long,” Yu breathed, the both of them wearing lovesick smiles as they stared into each other’s eyes. 

He stared at them in utter disbelief, eyes wide and mouth agape. “You...you..you’re…”

Yu laughed as they returned to the kitchen to finish preparing the tea. Iroh laughed too, shaking his head. “Just like old times, hm?”

Yu sighed. “No, the old times were better, back when I got to see you much more than I do now.”

“Take off the rose-colored glasses, Yu,” Iroh replied. Despite the seeming rudeness of his reply, it lacked any malice. 

Zuko couldn’t understand. Their exchange seemed both cold and warm at the same time, both full of love and littered with a minefield of scars. He cleared his throat and squinted at Iroh. “Are you going to tell me about _that_?” He asked, cheeks filled with uncomfortable heat. 

Iroh nodded and offered only a dismissive wave. “Yes, I’ll tell you.”

“Are you hungry? Surely you must be after your journey. Even just walking the streets down there will wear you out,” Yu chuckled, “it’s kind of a nightmare.”

“A bit, yes. Thank you.”

After several moments of flitting about the cramped kitchen like a white-clad bird, Yu brought the tea kettle and a plate of steamed buns to the table. They sat down beside Iroh and poured three cups of tea, one for themselves and one for Iroh and Zuko. 

“Are you going to explain things now?” Zuko questioned as he stared down at his own shimmering, warping reflection in the surface of the tea, a cloud of steam rising up from it.

“Yes, of course, sorry,” Yu said. “Your uncle and I met a long time ago, before you were born. In our youth, both of us were in the military. Iroh, of course, was part of the Fire Nation army, and I was part of the Earth Kingdom army. I was a doctor, and I worked on the front lines. Your uncle was a major back then, if my memory serves correctly. It has been quite some time since then.”

“You’re making me feel old,” Iroh smirked and shook his head. Still, he seemed content, as if remembering the history between them somehow made everything okay. He’d long since resigned to the blood on his hands. There was nothing he could do about the past; he could only try his best to change the future. 

Yu let out a laugh before continuing. “Anyways, I treated people who were injured by Fire Nation forces for a long time. One day, when I was summoned to the front on short notice, I was involved in an accident that left me disabled.” They lifted up the lower part of their robe to reveal their prosthetic metal left leg that went all the way up to the twisted, scarred pink skin of their thigh, and their matching right foot.

It kind of reminded Zuko of his own scar, and a strange twinge of joy shot through his chest like a bolt of lightning. 

“Of course, I was unable to keep doing my job due to my disability. I had to do a lot of physical therapy to even be able to walk again, let alone do everything required of me as a medical professional. I retired from the military at a young age, which coincidentally happened to be around the time I realized I was neither a man nor a woman. In my own frustration at the inadequacies of transition at the time, I decided that was what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to help people who were like me.”

“Is that how you met my uncle?” Zuko asked. 

Yu nodded. “Fire Lord Sozin made it difficult for Fire Nation citizens to access transition-related medical care, so most of my clients were people who came from your country looking for legal means of transition. Of course, Iroh was no exception. We met when your uncle showed up on my doorstep, requesting my services. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but that obviously changed pretty quick. Your uncle and I developed a friendship that surprised even me, and...it quickly turned into something different. I’m sure you can put two and two together. We were in a happy relationship together for some time. However, after his surgery, your uncle and I saw each other less and less often. It came to a point where we only saw each other once a year or so, and we drifted apart. More time passed, and the next time I even so much as heard his name was when my home city was under siege for almost two years.”

The atmosphere in the tiny room grew dark and tense, and Iroh’s jovial smile had turned into a tense frown. 

“Of course, I was furious. I didn’t know how Iroh could have treated my city and my Earth Kingdom siblings like that, after everything I’d done for him. I was angry for a long time, and your uncle didn’t talk to me until several weeks after Lu Ten’s passing.” As they said that, Yu looked over at Iroh, a soft, sympathetic expression painted across their face and dancing in their green eyes. They draped an arm over Iroh’s shoulder, and the two of them shared a small moment of intimate silence together. 

“Your uncle’s letter was full of apologies. He told me how sorry he was, and how badly he wanted to see me again. It was…” Yu paused again, a dark blush blooming across their cheeks like a cherry blossom tree in spring, “very sappy. And really heartfelt. I was touched by his letter, and we arranged to meet again. We patched things up pretty quickly when we saw each other again for the first time in years. Over the next few years up until now, your uncle had been making secret visits to Ba Sing Se to see me, now that he’s retired and all. That’s what led up to where we are right now. Or, that’s the long and short of it, at least.”

Zuko stared at them in stunned silence before speaking. “Uncle, how come you never told me about this?” 

Iroh laughed. “I didn’t think you cared much about my love life. Besides, it would be a strange conversation for a grown man to have with his nephew. I would’ve told you if you’d asked, though.”

Zuko turned to Yu. “So...is Lu Ten also your son?”

Yu fought back a laugh and shook their head. “No. Iroh, can I tell him?”

“Of course.”

“Lu Ten was adopted. He has no relation to me at all. I knew about him, of course, but I never met him. Iroh and I couldn’t have raised him together even if we wanted to.”

Zuko’s hand clenched into a fist. “Right. Fire Lord Sozin made it illegal for queer people to be in relationships.”

Yu sighed and leaned back in their chair. “There were a lot of other factors involved, but that’s part of it.”

“Enough reminiscing over history. Let’s create it. Zuko is going to be the first transgender Fire Lord in four hundred and six years,” Iroh said, a kind smile gracing his face.

“Four hundred and six years, huh? Who came before me?” Zuko questioned. 

“Fire Lord Huiliang was a trans woman, if my memory serves correct. But, if we include only masculine-gendered people, it’s been...seven hundred and thirty-eight years. Before you, it was Fire Lord Jun.”

“I can’t say I’ve heard of either of them,” Zuko sighed. 

“It’s okay. There’s plenty of history to learn when you’re Fire Lord, including all the Fire Lords that came before you—before Sozin. I’ll teach you myself if need be.”

“Thank you, uncle.”

“Iroh has always been a good teacher. Anyways, Zuko, are you sure this is what you want? Once you start, you can’t take it back. Some of the effects will reverse if you stop, but some of them will be permanent. I can’t say what will happen to you, although since you and Iroh are related, it’s likely that your journeys will be similar.”

A strange, choking feeling overwhelmed Zuko, and tears threatened to spill from his eyes. The last time he’d gotten any medical treatment from an actual doctor had been for his so-called ‘problem’. He’d never been given any choices regarding that kind of thing, and now the confrontation loomed like Ba Sing Se’s massive, imposing walls.

It made him realize that most of the choices he’d made in his life had been only surface-level. The thought threatened to swallow him alive, and he knew that—if given the opportunity—he would go crawling back to his father, if only to finally feel the warmth of his approval, to finally be complimented and praised and affirmed, to have his sixteen years of suffering disintegrate into nothing in the face of the love he’d finally earned. 

Earned. 

Was that how things were supposed to be? Surely he’d done nothing to earn Iroh’s love if he couldn’t also get his father’s. 

“Yes. I want to.”

Another small step towards taking back the life he could hardly call his own. 

He didn’t even realize it. 

“I believe you. I just want you to know what you want. It’s better to be completely sure.”

Zuko stared down at his own hands. “What will my father think? When he sees me again, I won’t be the person he knew…”

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks. This is about you and your own journey, Zuko. You can’t keep relying on Ozai to carve your path. You have to do it yourself; it’s your life,” Iroh said as he placed his hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “Is this what you want?”

Zuko nodded. “This is what I want.”

Iroh smiled. “Good.”

He knew Zuko was right. Ozai wouldn’t have supported his transition. It would infuriate him, probably even more than Iroh’s had. He relished in Zuko’s tiny victory, though. Nothing made him happier than watching his nephew slowly break away from his father’s iron grip. 

Even if he didn’t realize it.

  


* * *

  


Zuko stared at his own reflection in the mirror, his black hair pulled back into a small ponytail that accentuated the shape of his face, which he swore up and down had become more masculine since he and Iroh had gone to Ba Sing Se and met Yu. 

Iroh. 

He tried telling himself Iroh was a traitor. 

He tried, but a part of him protested against it. 

His father’s reaction wasn’t what he’d expected, and now he felt as though he was being consumed by a vast emptiness bigger than anything he’d felt before. 

As he sat beside his father at the war meeting, he could feel it creeping into his soul like water trickling through a leaky roof. Even as his father referred to him as ‘prince Zuko’, even as he looked out from the platform beside the throne, over his father’s generals and military men, something inside him shifted. 

In his desperate search for his father’s love, he’d lost himself. He’d lost sight of the path _he_ was supposed to be walking, and had stumbled through the darkness onto the one Ozai had chosen for him. He’d presumed it the right path for most of his life, but he now knew that it wasn’t. 

Ozai’s respect was conditional. His _love_ was conditional. 

Love wasn’t supposed to be conditional.

He’d learned it after having been around Iroh so long. Iroh’s love was never conditional. He didn’t demand things of Zuko; he hadn’t forced Zuko to alter who he was as a person to be better, more respectable, less ‘weird’, more appealing. 

And now he felt like a fool for the way he’d treated Iroh.

After everything they’d been through together. After all the times Iroh had stayed by his side, even when he was unpleasant or downright rude.

A spark of anger rose up inside him. Emotions filled his chest to the brim like water threatening to overflow from a pitcher, compounded a hundred times over by the fact that Ozai had taken away his only form of self-expression.

Now, instead of turning outwards, his emotions turned inwards and threatened to choke him, blades pointed at his heart as he struggled to breathe. 

“What do I do?” He asked himself as he stared out of the window in his bedroom. His arm moved to his chest, and his hand aimed for the ceiling as a small ring of flames circled his fingers, the fire reaching up towards the ceiling only to retreat back to his hand. 

What was he doing? 

He sat up in surprise, the flames vanishing. 

The memory sparked in his mind, and he squeezed his eyes shut so tight that white stars flashed in the corners of his vision. He waited for the shooting, stabbing pain to pulse through his body, but it didn’t. 

“How come…?”

Hesitantly, he traced the perfect seams on the fabric of his robe, stopping after several seconds to brace himself. 

Again, the memory came and rattled him, but the pain didn’t. 

It had happened just a few days ago, so why was this time different?

Either way, he was thankful that he wouldn’t have to suffer for it, and Zuko redirected all his sadness, rage, confusion, and anxiety into his fingertips. A large pillar of flames rose up into the air and licked the edges of his bed canopy, the red silk fabric turning to black in an instant.

It didn’t matter what he burned. If he’d accidentally burned the entire palace into ash in that moment, he wouldn’t have cared. 

“Ugh! Fuck, I’m so…” 

He pinched the bridge of his nose and almost burned himself from the heat still circulating in his hands. It was an awful feeling, but not being able to put a name to the storm swirling about in his chest was a thousand times worse. 

He wished Iroh were here. 

Despite everything, he couldn’t keep himself from falling apart, even if he wasn’t sure why. He’d always had a hard time putting words to feelings, and the testosterone treatments he’d been doing had done nothing to improve his emotional problems. 

Strange, he thought, because he knew it would make him feel better long-term. 

“It’s this place,” he said aloud, to nobody in particular, “it’s suffocating me.”

It was less the actual palace itself and more the people who occupied it, the painful memories it held within its walls.

Even his own bedroom barely felt safe, as if it were but a tiny boat rocking about in a turbulent, tumultuous ocean. Still, it would be a lie if he said he wasn’t thankful for the respite it gave him every day as a child. When things got too loud and all his senses were buzzing in that strange, painful way that they did from time to time, retreating to his room was his only solace. When he was too hot or too cold, he could open a window or start a fire. 

Iroh always understood, it seemed. He was quiet when things were too loud, always squeezed with just the right amount of pressure when he gave hugs, limited the smells in his tea shop and cooking, never demanded that Zuko speak with his ‘inside voice’ or sound more enthusiastic or excited. He simply enjoyed Zuko’s existence for what it was. 

Shame washed over him like rain seeping into the dirt, and he curled in on himself and cried, tears staining his pillow. Zuko cried so much and so hard that a splitting headache rattled his brain and blurred his vision once he was done. 

It was his fault Iroh was in jail, and his fault alone. He’d betrayed Iroh after _everything_. All those years his uncle had been by his side, guiding him and protecting him and nurturing him, and this was how he showed his gratitude?

“Uncle...I’m sorry…”

Still, he hung on to the tiny sliver of hope offered to him by the Day of Black Sun. 

He would make things right this time. He would get Iroh out of jail and never betray him again; he would beg for his uncle’s forgiveness. Hell, he’d even grovel if he had to, anything for Iroh to forgive him for the years of mistreatment he’d put him through. 

He was going to make it right once and for all, by joining forces with Aang to take out his father.

  


* * *

  


“Why do you talk like that?” Toph asked. 

Zuko rubbed at the back of his neck. “Talk like what? This is just my voice. You got a problem?”

“No, geez. Your voice is just...kinda flat.”

Zuko sighed. “Yeah, well, I have a disability.”

Toph gasped. “No way! Me too!”

He squinted at her. “I know…? You’re blind.”

“You’re a genius, Zuko.”

He said nothing in response, only stared into the fire before them. 

“I’m sure she didn’t mean to be rude,” Aang said. 

Sokka cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she did. Toph’s kinda rude like that.”

“Hey! Who are you callin’ rude?!” Toph huffed. 

“Toph, be nice,” Katara told her.

“It’s fine,” Zuko said, “she was just stating the truth.”

“So,” Sokka said through a mouthful of cooked fish, “what’s wrong with you, exactly?”

“Sokka!” Katara scolded. 

Sokka looked at her. “What? I’m just wondering! This is the first time I’m hearing about this!”

“Like I said, it’s fine,” Zuko repeated, irritation lining his voice like a blade. “I have a disorder called ‘self-obstruction syndrome’,” he sighed as he started the tired explanation, “it’s a neurological condition, and it’s the reason my voice sounds like this. It makes communication and social skills difficult as well.”

“Is that why you’re always touching your shirt?” Sokka questioned. 

Zuko glared at him. “Yes. It’s just something I do.” It had taken him ages to even begin his journey of self-acceptance, especially since it was a part of him that he’d been taught to hate since childhood. 

Sokka shrugged. “Okay. Fair enough.”

Nobody questioned him about it any more after that, and as everyone was preparing for bed, Toph appeared beside him. 

“Hey,” she said as she flopped down on the loose, white sand.

“What do you want?”

Toph laughed. 

“I dunno,” she said as she lay down, her cloudy green eyes staring up at the sky that was an endless black sea with shimmering diamonds sprinkled across its surface. “I guess it’s just nice to meet someone else who’s disabled, even if we aren’t disabled in the same way, y’know?”

“Yeah.”

In a twist of defiance against his father, embracing his identity had given him a newfound pride he’d lacked prior to finding himself again. Of course, Iroh had also helped him more than he could understand. Seeing Iroh content with his identity had made Zuko more secure in his, even if he’d pretended not to care for years. 

He knew Toph was proud of who she was. It didn’t mean things were easy; far from it. Sometimes, surviving in a world where everything was stacked against people like the two of them seemed impossible. 

And yet, here they both were; life wasn’t just about surviving anymore. Both of their existences drew attention and demanded bending the most powerful element of all—expectation. Both he and Toph loved who they were, and made use of the skills their disabilities gave them to solve problems in ways that abled people couldn’t.

And he cherished it.

  


* * *

  


“Zuko, are you feeling alright?” Iroh asked. 

“Yes uncle, I’m fine. I feel much better now, so please don’t worry,” Zuko replied as he took a sip of his tea. It was delicious, sweet and with a slight herbal flavor that filled his body with warmth. 

“How can I not worry? You’re about to become _Fire Lord_ Zuko. My nephew...Fire Lord…”

Zuko smiled at his uncle and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah...Fire Lord. So much has happened just in the past few months, it kind of doesn’t feel real.”

Iroh nodded. “I know it’s a lot to handle, but I know you can do it. You’ll make a great Fire Lord.”

“Thank you, uncle. I don’t think I could’ve done it without you. I’m grateful you stayed by my side, even when things were hard,” he admitted, tapping his fingers against the porcelain exterior of the cup. 

“Anything for you, my nephew. I’m proud of the person you’ve become. I’ll be cheering for you at your coronation tomorrow.” A kind flame flickered in his eyes as he spoke, the lines carved in his face by age drawn sharp with the smile on his lips. 

“I don’t know about that. Have you _heard_ how loud Toph can be? All my friends promised they’d catch my coronation ceremony tomorrow before heading home to their respective nations,” Zuko explained. 

“What about Aang?”

Zuko shrugged. “I’m not sure. I didn’t ask him what his plans were, but...he and Katara are dating now, so I guess he’s going to head back to the Southern Water Tribe with her. Besides, it’s not like he’s going to stop being the Avatar just because the war’s over. If anything…” he paused, pinching the bridge of his nose, “we’re probably going to need his help in the coming weeks. I’m not exactly the nation’s most popular pick for Fire Lord.”

Iroh sighed. “I know, but you’re the best option. Not everyone can see that right now, but they will.”

Zuko drew in a sharp, painful breath. “I just hope I’m making the right choice. I always wanted to be Fire Lord, but…I’m only sixteen. I don’t know the first thing about running a nation, let alone tying up all the loose ends my father left behind.” Despite having let go of most of his anger, part of it would always be there, embedded in his soul like a shield, protecting the parts of himself he’d never be naïve enough to let someone hurt again. 

“I guess I always just thought there’d be more time,” he said solemnly. 

“Zuko,” Iroh started, “there’s no way you could’ve predicted this. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Too much stress isn’t good for you. Besides, you can always come to me if there’s a problem. As much as I love my tea shop, my home will always be here with you, in the Fire Nation,” he reassured as he poured another cup of tea for his beloved nephew. 

“I just want to do what’s right. I’m scared of becoming like my father. I...I don’t know what I would do if I ended up doing what he did.” The mere thought of it made bile rise into the back of his throat, bitter and burning.

That thought had haunted him for a long time. As the date of his coronation inched closer, it hung over his head like a dark cloud he tried desperately to ignore. 

He tried telling himself he wasn’t his father. The words danced on his tongue like a mantra when he looked at himself in the mirror, when he was alone and could talk to himself without getting odd glances thrown his way.

‘I’m not my father.’

Did he believe it?

His face was like Ozai’s. They had almost the same skin tone—Zuko’s was a few shades darker thanks to Ursa—and the same dark hair and facial structure. 

But Ozai’s eyes were different. 

He remembered it clear as day, as though the memory was a dewdrop plucked from his childhood. When he’d forced himself to look into his father’s eyes, he was terrified of what he saw. 

Malice didn’t even begin to describe it. He saw his father’s greed, his anger, his hatred, the golden-orange claws of his manipulation. 

But he remembered what Ozai had said about him, too. 

His eyes didn’t have a certain ‘spark’, apparently. His own eyes reflected so few of his father’s traits that he’d planned to cast his own son over the palace wall and let him die. 

His own eyes were nothing like Ozai’s. That was his only solace, his single relief. After holding his breath for hours, at the end of the day he’d enter his bedroom and look at himself. He’d look into his own eyes and be thankful they weren’t his father’s; he’d be thankful he didn’t see what he’d seen in Ozai’s eyes that day. 

Was that really enough? 

“You’re nothing like your father. In my opinion, the similarity ends at the looks. Everything else is completely different. You are a good person, Zuko. Your father isn’t.”

“I worry that other people don’t see that in me.”

“They will. They’ll realize that your father’s era is over, and that caring about other people is more important than any kind of military might or any amount of stolen, conquered land.”

Zuko rose from his seat and began to pace back and forth across the marble floor, hands folded behind his back. “What if they think I’m too weak? I can’t let myself become soft. How do I find—”

Iroh cut him off. “Nephew, relax. Softness is not weakness. It takes more strength to be kind than it does to act like a jerk to everyone. Just take a deep breath and calm down. I’m here for you; all your friends are here for you. You won’t have to do this alone.”

“You’re right. All I can do is try and lead our country in the right direction and work to atone for my father’s sins. There’s no manual on how to be Fire Lord.”

Terror struck him as another thought entered his mind. There was only one other person alive who had experience being Fire Lord. In most normal cases, the previous Fire Lord would pass their knowledge down to their successor over the course of many years, allowing the future Fire Lord to sharpen the blade of their knowledge. After succession, it wasn’t uncommon for the new Fire Lord to rely on the previous one for advice, especially when in difficult situations. 

But Zuko didn’t get to have that. His family was anything _but_ normal. 

Having been banished at thirteen, he’d never learned anything about what his duties as Fire Lord entailed or how to perform his job properly. He’d have to navigate it all himself, because the only person he had was Ozai, and even then, he was only Fire Lord for a meager five years. 

The irony of it almost made Zuko laugh. What did someone who’d ruled for less than a third of his son’s life know? 

He tried telling himself that with the bitter fear of crawling back to Ozai when he didn’t know what to do lingering in his mouth like a bad aftertaste.

Zuko sighed and rose from his seat. “I’m going to bed. Tomorrow’s a big day,” he said as he made for the door. 

“Zuko, wait,” Iroh said. 

Zuko stopped and glanced over his shoulder at Iroh. “What?”

“I love you. I’m so proud of the person you’ve become. See you tomorrow.”

He couldn’t keep himself from smiling. “I know, uncle. I love you too. See you tomorrow.”

  


* * *

  


“Hello, uncle. Sorry I’m late, the traffic in the outer ring is terrible.”

“Fire Lord Zuko!” 

Zuko laughed and shook his head. “Uncle, you know you can just call me Zuko, right? I’m still the same person.”

“You look tired,” Iroh said. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

Zuko sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Being Fire Lord is hard. It’s been over three years and I still don’t have it all down. A lot of people are still really angry at me, and rightfully so. We hurt a lot of people. It seems like every day there’s another problem somewhere else in the world. It’s like for every ten people I help, there’s a thousand more who would like nothing more than to see me be ousted from my position. Even after all this time, it’s still hard to grasp just how far my father managed to reach in his five years as Fire Lord.”

Iroh frowned and placed his hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “It sounds like you’re dealing with a lot right now. Come, sit. Let’s have some tea together.”

He took a seat at one of the tables and watched as Iroh poured two cups of tea. 

“By the way,” he started, passing one of the cups to Zuko, “you look great. Your voice has gotten deeper, too.”

“I feel a lot better after having gotten top surgery.”

“I bet it felt good to get that off your chest,” Iroh joked.

For the first time in a long time, Zuko laughed. “Thanks, uncle. You always know how to cheer me up when I feel bad.”

“It’s what I do.” He watched as tiny flames danced in the air around Zuko’s fingers, recognizing it as his nephew’s nervous, upset, or overwhelmed stim.

“Now, what did you want to talk to me about?” Iroh questioned. He looked at his nephew’s face, but avoided his eyes, knowing Zuko looked at noses or foreheads instead of eyes because that was just how things were with him.

“I guess I’m just overwhelmed. When I first started being Fire Lord, I told myself things would get easier. Some of them did, and I’ve picked up on a few things here and there, but it’s still so...difficult. Even just finding the time to meet with you was hard. You wouldn’t believe how many things I had to put aside and reschedule just to get a few hours of personal time. There are so many things I have to do that it feels impossible to keep track of them all.”

“You’ve made a lot of progress in three years. The capital city had its first pride parade in years because of you. You made life better for so many people by overturning all of Sozin’s archaic laws.”

Zuko’s free hand clenched into a fist. “People protested in the street for weeks, and I had to call Aang and the Kyoshi warriors in to defend people during that pride parade. One of the new transition clinics in Qixian was nearly burned to the ground _three_ times. That doesn’t even begin to cover the increase in hate crimes, the demand for more wedding facilities now that same-gender couples can marry, the rumors about me, the new school curricula, all th—”

“Zuko,” Iroh’s voice was calm, like always. “I know you’re stressed right now, but—”

Zuko cut him off in turn. “‘Stressed’ doesn’t even begin to describe it!” he snapped as he slammed his palms against the table. “I feel like I’m losing my mind, and nobody understands.”

“I know it’s difficult, Zuko. Nobody ever said it would be easy. You’re doing a great job. Even if it doesn’t seem like it, you’ve improved the lives of many. Just think of all the couples who can get married and live together happily, or the smiles on the faces of everyone at the parade. Think about how you felt on the day you started your transition, and imagine all the young people who feel the exact same way now. It’s all thanks to you.”

“It seems like the only people who ever want to talk to me are the ones who hate me. You wouldn’t believe the countless complaints that citizens want to have me hear. Almost all of them are older people upset by the direction I’m moving our nation. They constantly rave about wanting to ‘return to the old ways’, or about how I’m being too soft and ought to be more like my father, and other nonsense about how ‘degeneracy’ is making our country weak.”

Iroh clicked his tongue. “They’re wrong, but I can see how that could get discouraging. You should know that what you’re doing is right, and I couldn’t be more proud of you. It’s time for the older generation to realize this is a new era.”

“I just hope what I’m doing is right. I guess I just want to be sure of it,” Zuko sighed. 

Iroh nodded. “It’s like you said. There’s no guide for being Fire Lord. You just have to do what you think is right, even if some people hate you for it. You won’t be able to please everyone.”

“So many people are mad at me for allocating tax dollars towards helping rebuild the other nations. It’s mostly our aristocrats, of course. They’re the ones who pay the most taxes, so they think that suddenly gives them complete control over what happens with them. I know if it was up to them, they’d use that money for our own nation. We’re doing just fine. Besides, we could do with a smaller military and fewer jails.”

Iroh smiled and poured Zuko another cup of hot tea, and he drank it down angrily. “I think what you’re doing is right, but it’s up to you to choose your own path and how you want to lead this nation. Whatever happens, I’ll support you.”

Zuko placed his cup back on the table. “No.”

“What?” Iroh questioned. 

“I mean, I’m unimaginably grateful for your support and guidance, but...if I start to become like my father, I don’t want you to support me. I wouldn’t want anyone to support me if I returned to my father’s ways. If I’m being honest, I…” Zuko paused, and a thick, uncomfortable curtain of silence fell over the room. “I’m terrified of becoming the same kind of person as my father. I’ve managed to avoid it thus far, but the thought eats at me every day. I know I’m always only a few bad decisions away from falling into the same traps he did.”

Iroh rose from his seat and went around the table. “Can I touch you?”

Zuko nodded, and Iroh wrapped his arms around him in a tight hug. It felt good to be hugged again by one of the few people he let actually touch him. 

“My son.”

Tears burned the corners of Zuko’s eyes. Iroh was everything someone could possibly want in a father, whereas Ozai held the title only as a technicality. He was a father insofar as he had kids, but that was where his ‘fatherhood’ ended.

“Yeah?”

“I know you’ll do what’s right. You are not your father, and you won’t become him no matter how many times you fall short of our nation’s expectations. You are Fire Lord Zuko; you’re kind and intelligent and the best son anyone could ask for. If you stray from the path, you’ll find your way back just like you always do. I’ll be right beside you if you need help.”

“Do you promise?” Zuko asked, voice shaking. 

“I promise.”

“Uncle, I’m tired.”

“I know. Perhaps you should arrange to take a vacation? It may help you clear your mind a bit,” Iroh suggested. 

Zuko sighed. “I would, but...just thinking about it is making my head spin. I would have to have an interim Fire Lord take over, because I don’t think our citizens could go one day without complaining to _someone_. Of course, I’d also have to keep my route and destination a secret, considering how many people are out for my blood. I suppose I could stay here, considering the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom probably wouldn’t exactly welcome me with open arms if I came alone. Still, there’s...someone I’d want to see…”

A smug grin crept across Iroh’s face. “A guy?”

A deep, warm blush bloomed across Zuko’s cheeks. “Yes, a guy. I thought I already told you that I’m gay.”

“Who is it? Is he cute?”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “None of your business. But…” his expression softened, “he is cute. And funny. And...brave.”

“You should go see him,” Iroh encouraged. 

“My dad’s in jail, and I don’t trust Azula for a second. That...that leaves only you. I know I can trust you, of course, but...I wanted you to retire in peace. Suddenly thrusting the burden of temporary Fire Lord upon you is a lot to bear.”

Iroh shook his head, “I’ll be fine for a bit. Besides, you’re the real Fire Lord. It’s not like you’re giving up your title to me.”

Zuko smiled and sat up a bit. “You’re right. A vacation may be just what I need. Thank you, uncle. I’ll probably only be a couple of weeks.”

“Take as much time as you feel necessary. You haven’t had so much as a single day’s break in over three years,” Iroh gave a dismissive wave. “Besides, Yu can always hold down the fort here if need be.”

Zuko raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t they a doctor?”

“You’d be surprised. They make a mean cup of tea. Besides, they’re happy to help whenever I need them.” As he spoke, Iroh cast a loving gaze down at the golden ring around his finger. 

“Are you sure that isn’t just an excuse to see you more?” Zuko joked dryly. 

“Who knows? Love does mysterious things to people, Zuko,” Iroh shrugged. 

“Yeah. Love…”

  


* * *

  


“Thanks for picking me up on Appa,” Zuko said as he jumped down onto the icy ground from atop the giant flying beast’s back. 

“No problem! Anything to help you enjoy your vacation!” Aang chirped as he slid down beside Zuko. “If you want, I can show you around. It’s awesome here. It may not seem like it, but there’s lots of stuff to do.”

“Have things...calmed down? Politically, I mean,” Zuko questioned.

“Yeah. Things are a lot better here now. People still have their disagreements and stuff, but it’s a lot better without a civil war hanging over our heads,” Aang laughed. “Anyways, follow me! I’ll show you where Katara and I live!”

Zuko followed Aang through the blue, icy streets of the city. Of course, a few people stared at him as he passed, despite the fact that, prior to his vacation, he’d temporarily traded his Fire Lord robes for more relaxed plainclothes. 

“This is it!” Aang said as the two of them stopped in front of a large house. Aang rapped on the doorframe as he opened it, stepping inside. 

“Honey, I’m home!” He called. “And Fire Lord Zuko’s with me!”

Zuko followed behind Aang and closed the door, glancing around the room before him. Like many of the buildings, it was made entirely of thick sheets of ice, despite not feeling cold inside at all. It was homey, and the decorations throughout the living room and the small section of the dining room that he could see were a strange fusion of Southern Water Tribe and Air Nomad. Little stone carvings of flying bison sat on a shelf beside traditional bone carvings of various aquatic life. It wasn’t at all what he was used to, yet he still found it oddly charming. 

Aang disappeared through a doorway covered by a faux fur pelt, several moments passing before he returned with Katara. 

“Katara! Nice to see you again. It’s been a while,” Zuko stated. 

“It has, hasn’t it? Over a year at this point, right?”

“I think so,” Aang chimed in. “Anyways, feel free to make yourself at home. Our house is your house and stuff like that.”

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Katara said as she pressed a kiss against Aang’s lips. 

“Thanks. Your place is very nice.”

Aang shrugged as he moved into the living room and planted himself on the couch, made from packed snow and covered in more faux-fur pelts and hand-woven blankets. “I bet it’s nothing compared to your palace.”

Zuko sat on the chair across from him, shrugging as he did so. “The palace is alright. It’s not exactly homey, though.”

“Fair.”

Several uncomfortable moments of silence passed before Zuko spoke up again. “So...where’s Sokka?”

“Oh, you wanna meet Sokka? He lives just down the road a bit. I can take you to his house after dinner, if you want.”

“That...would be nice. I’d like to see as many of my old friends as possible,” he said quickly.

“Yeah. Too bad Toph couldn’t be here, but...you know how she is. Besides, she’s really busy teaching metalbending. It’s not like she has any attachment to this place either.”

“I’m sure we’ll run into each other again. My uncle’s tea shop is in the Earth Kingdom, remember? That, and my transition doctor also lives there.”

“Oh yeah, that Yu person, right?”

Zuko nodded. “They’re wonderful.”

Aang put a finger to his chin. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately. Maybe I’ll pay them a visit soon.”

“You’re welcome to stop by the palace any time on your way,” Zuko said. 

“Thanks!”

“So...do you stay here?” Zuko questioned. 

Aang shook his head. “I’m usually only here for a few weeks. I travel around a lot with Katara and our friends and help people, even if it’s just with small things. I’m...not exactly the homebody type,” he laughed. 

“Your people were nomads, so I suppose it suits you,” Zuko told him.

Aang nodded. “I’m actually leaving again in a few days.”

“Aang and Fire Lord Zuko, dinner is ready!” Katara called from the dining room. 

“Oh man, Katara is amazing at cooking. I usually help out in the kitchen too, but I’m nowhere near as good,” Aang laughed as he got up from the couch and entered the dining room. 

The three of them sat at the table and ate an odd combination of Southern Water Tribe and Air Nomad food. Everything was vegetarian, and to say that things were lightly seasoned was an understatement. It seemed like the only condiment available was salt, which made sense, but Zuko would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t miss the rich, spicy flavors of his nation’s cuisine. 

“Is the food okay? I knew you were coming, but I wasn’t able to get my hands on any traditional Fire Nation spices in time,” Katara said. 

“It’s fine. The food is delicious, and I’m grateful for your hospitality,” Zuko told her. 

After they ate, he and Aang left for Sokka’s house. 

He was right about it being just down the road. The place was visible from Katara and Aang’s house, if only just. 

Once again, Aang rapped against the wooden door of the house, leaning against the ice-block door frame. 

“Coming!” Sokka’s voice called from inside. Muffled, shuffling footsteps leaked from behind the door for a few seconds before it flew open. 

“Hello Aang! And...Fire Lord Zuko…?” Sokka greeted. 

“Sokka,” Zuko returned his friend’s greeting.

“What are you doing here? N-Not that we don’t want you here or anything, you’re welcome any time, just…” Sokka stammered out, rubbing at the back of his neck in embarrassment.

Zuko gave a dismissive wave, “it’s alright. I’m here on vacation, taking a little much-needed time away from my duties as Fire Lord.”

Sokka nodded before pausing and raising a finger to his chin. “Wait a second...if you’re here, and your dad is in jail, and your crazy sister is...somewhere, who’s Fire Lord right now?”

“Me,” Zuko said. “I’m Fire Lord still. My uncle Iroh is overseeing my duties at the palace as interim Fire Lord, though.”

“Huh? I don’t really understand how that works, but...it doesn’t really matter. Anyways, come in! It’s cold out there!” Sokka motioned for the two of them to come in, and they did as they were asked and entered their friend’s house. 

However, Zuko quickly realized that it wasn’t _just_ Sokka’s house. It sort of resembled Aang and Katara’s house, but with a mix of Earth Kingdom and Southern Water Tribe interior decoration. 

Suki. 

“Oh.”

Sokka looked over his shoulder at him. “What?”

“Nothing, I just...your interior decoration skills are surprisingly good,” Zuko lied. 

It almost scared him how easily it came to him, but he’d been doing it his whole life. The person he’d pretended to be for most of his life was an intricately fabricated lie himself. 

He was lying when he pretended to be the person he wasn’t, when he repressed the parts of himself that his father didn’t like for his own sake. 

“Thanks,” Sokka said as he puffed his chest out. “Anyways, make yourselves at home. I already ate, but if you want some food, my gran-gran made a bunch of blubbered seal jerky.”

“That’s okay! Katara made us a nice dinner back at home,” Aang said. “But thanks, Sokka!”

“No problem-o. Let’s go sit down. I’ve been working on my carving skills and I think you two should see,” Sokka beamed. 

The two followed Sokka into the small living room, where a shelf of bone and rock carvings sat pushed up against the wall. It was covered in carving tools, uncut bone and rock, and assorted halfway-finished pieces.

“This is my workshop. Sorta. I mostly just like it cause I can look out the window. Really gets my artistic juices goin’, y’know?”

Zuko couldn’t help but smile, even if part of him hurt deep down. 

Sokka was the same person he’d always been, and it filled the cavern in Zuko’s chest with a strange feeling. 

What was the best part of him, he wondered? Was it Sokka’s smile, brighter than the moon? His humor, sometimes groan-inducing but always oddly charming, even for Zuko, who couldn’t always detect the line between sarcasm and truth? Maybe it was his intelligence, or his tact, or the way strategy played from his mind like a river?

Maybe he’d ask Aang about it later. 

“And so that’s the story of how I ended up getting stuck on an ice floe for a week straight,” Sokka’s voice pierced Zuko’s thoughts like a blade. 

“Is that...related to your carvings at all?” Aang questioned. 

Sokka snorted, “oh, no. I just thought it was a funny story.”

“It was funny,” Zuko said. He’d barely paid attention, sure, but it wasn’t like he’d done it intentionally. Sometimes his mind simply slipped from him, and moments passed where he found himself floating on the blurry line between reality and daydreams. 

“Thanks!” Sokka chirped. 

“Where’s Suki?” Aang asked as he planted himself on the couch beside several carvings of...something, impossible as it was to discern what they were actually supposed to resemble. 

Sokka sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “She’s not living here right now. Honestly, our living situation is kinda complicated. She regularly goes back to the Earth Kingdom to hang out with the other Kyoshi Warriors, but she also comes down here to live with me sometimes. I don’t know what’ll happen when we’re married, but moving to the Earth Kingdom may be more convenient.”

“Married?” Zuko stared at him. Were they engaged? Already? 

Would things have been different if he’d taken his shot with Sokka a few years earlier? It was no secret that he was bisexual, so Zuko knew he may have had a chance had he only been quicker and more decisive. 

Would he have regretted it? Some people may have brushed his anxiety off as a fear of commitment, but something about it was different from that. 

He wondered if he was too broken to be loved. Maybe the age-old adage was true, that he needed to love himself before anyone else could. 

But Iroh loved him, and Zuko had spent years laboring over the uphill climb of loving himself, even if the journey wasn’t yet fully complete. He didn’t know if it would ever be.

Maybe that was why.

Maybe he’d come into it too late, or maybe there was something wrong with him. Maybe he was too much or not enough, or maybe nobody wanted to go through the pain of putting the shattered pieces of their partner back together again and again and again. 

There was no telling when he’d fall apart. He had good days and bad days, of course, but how long his stability would last was a mystery to him. There were times when all he could hear was Ozai’s voice, resonating behind the tongues of every person he spoke to. There were times when he looked in the mirror and saw his father’s face looking back at him, golden-orange eyes absent of any love for his son. 

Maybe it was just fate. His mind was like an infinite series of catacombs, and his thoughts spiraled down into their darkness every time he found himself alone inside it. 

“So yeah, I’m probably gonna pop the question soon. What do you think?”

“You should,” Aang said. 

“Zuko?”

“Oh, uh...I don’t know,” he said. 

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” Sokka asked. 

Aang turned and looked at Zuko, and his heart rose into his throat at the terrible confrontation. “Uh...no. I thought it was kinda obvious…”

“What?” Sokka asked. “Oh no...did that girl turn into sea foam?!”

Zuko squinted. “What? Sea foam? No...I’m gay.”

“You’re gay? Man...I just thought you were the kind of guy who wasn’t into dating. You _do_ have a lot of stuff on your plate as Fire Lord and all,” Sokka stammered out. 

“Uh...what about my speech at capitol city pride? Did you think all that stuff about queer identity and self-love was just allyship?”

Sokka laughed awkwardly. “I’m allergic to speeches.”

“That sounds...fake.”

Sokka clicked his tongue. “It’s _real_ , thank you very much! Anyways, if you’re gay, do you have a boyfriend?”

Zuko shook his head. “No. I’ve...kind of been focusing on my royal duties. It doesn’t exactly leave much time for dating.”

‘Besides, I like you.’

He should’ve said it, but what would change? Things would just become awkward between them, and he didn’t want to make the next few weeks painful when he and Sokka’s paths happened to cross. 

“Damn. That sounds rough. Good luck.”

Sokka’s pretty smile made Zuko’s chest ache. “Thanks. You too. With Suki, I mean.”

  


* * *

  


“Hey daddy?”

“Yes, dear?” Zuko looked up at his daughter, her small form standing in the doorway and casting a shadow across the floor in the dim light.

“Can I ask you something?” Izumi asked as she entered the room. 

Zuko nodded and offered a warm smile. “Of course. You know you can always talk to me.”

Izumi sat down beside him, looking up at her father with wide, curious eyes like the ocean at sunset. Childish innocence sparkled inside them, and an overwhelming desire to protect that light flooded Zuko’s chest.

“How’d you get your scar? I know I asked before, but you always just said you’d tell me when I’m older. Well, I just turned eight! Can I know now?” She asked as she tugged at the sleeve of his robe. 

Zuko sighed, and Izumi frowned. “Please? Please?”

“Alright. I need you to understand something first, though,” he started. 

“What?”

“I...the story is difficult for me to tell, even all these years later. I may cry or get emotional, so I wanted to tell you. Of course, I’m proud of how I look, and I like my face now, it’s just the memories that make me sad.”

Izumi nodded, but Zuko wasn’t sure she understood. He placed his hand on her cheek and brushed a stray strand of black hair from her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. 

“I understand, daddy. Just tell me.”

“Alright. All of this happened a long time ago, when I was a couple years older than you. I was in an important meeting alongside one of my father’s top military officials. Everything was going well until the official I mentioned suggested something that made me very angry.”

“What was it?!” Izumi gasped. 

“This man suggested that we sacrifice many new, young soldiers for a foolish reason. I was mad, of course, because those young people signed up to protect their country because they loved being Fire Nation citizens. In speaking out, I angered my father. He saw what I’d said as insulting him. So, my father demanded I participate in an Agni Kai.”

“Whoa...were you scared?”

Zuko shook his head. “Not at first. I believed I would be fighting the military official I’d insulted, but…” he paused, taking a moment to collect himself. 

Izumi placed her tiny hand atop Zuko’s, and he almost broke then and there. 

“The person I was dueling wasn’t the military official. It was my father, your grandpa, Fire Lord Ozai. He said that by insulting the battle plan, I’d insulted him. Of course, this scared me. My father was a very strong firebender, and he already liked my sister more than me. I begged my father for mercy. I even groveled in front of him, apologizing and pleading for him to forgive me for how I’d spoken.”

Izumi said nothing, but Zuko noticed the terror on her face, her eyes betraying it clear as day. 

“This did nothing to make my father less angry, however. In fact, he saw my refusal to fight him as a sign of cowardice…” Zuko’s hand clenched into a fist, but he continued. “He told me he was going to teach me some respect. With that, he used his firebending on me and burned my face...in front of my uncle, and my sister...and hundreds of spectators.”

A tear rolled down Zuko’s cheek and fell onto his shirt. 

“Daddy? Are you okay?” Izumi asked. 

“Yes honey. I’m fine, thank you.”

Izumi nodded, but he didn’t know whether or not she actually believed him. 

“Anyways, he stripped me of my royal birthright and banished me from our nation. He told me not to come back until I found the Avatar, which was why I started searching for Avatar Aang in the first place. You remember Avatar Aang, right?”

Izumi nodded. “Yeah! The funny bald guy with the arrow on his head! He’s so cool and nice. I remember the pretty lady with the blue dress gave me some candy last time we met,” she said. 

Zuko laughed. “That’s Katara, a great healer and waterbender, and Aang’s wife.”

“No way! She’s so pretty. I want to marry a pretty lady like her one day,” Izumi huffed. “And I want to wear a pretty dress like that!”

Zuko ruffled his daughter’s hair. “You can marry whoever you like, as long as they love you and treat you with respect.”

Izumi was silent for several moments before returning her gaze to Zuko. “What about my mom? What was she like?”

Zuko chewed his bottom lip. “That’s a conversation for when you’re a little older, sweetie.”

Izumi let out a frustrated sigh, but didn’t protest. “Fine. But I want to know as soon as I turn nine!”

Zuko laughed and nodded. “Okay.”

  


* * *

  


“Izumi,” Zuko started. 

“Hm? Oh, hey dad. What is it?” Izumi asked.

Zuko sighed and swallowed down the uneasiness that stirred in his chest. “I have something I need to talk to you about.”

Izumi’s smile dropped. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, I just need to tell you something is all. Why don’t we head to the throne room?” He suggested gently, scrambling to skirt around anything that might suggest what it was that he wanted to tell Izumi. 

“Okay.”

The two of them went to the throne room in silence and took a seat at the table where hundreds of years worth of history had been made.

“Tea?” Zuko asked. 

Izumi laughed. “You’re turning into your uncle.”

“Is that a bad thing? Your granduncle Iroh has been like a father to me all these years. He’s a great man,” Zuko said as he heated up the water for the tea. 

“That’s true. He is pretty awesome. Plus, nobody makes tea like him. I’m also pretty sure he’s the unofficial world champion of Pai Sho or something.”

Zuko poured the tea into two of the handmade clay tea cups Iroh had given him several years ago as a gift, and he passed one across the table to Izumi, who pressed her hands against it and stared down into the tea’s green surface. She watched as a plume of steam reached for the ceiling before vanishing into the air around it. 

“What was it you wanted to tell me?”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose, a soft sigh falling from his lips. “I shouldn’t have waited as long as I did to tell you this. I’m truly sorry, Izumi. You’re adopted.”

An uncomfortable, tense blanket of silence fell over the room for several moments before Izumi shattered the silence, her voice shaking.

“I...so...you mean I’m not your daughter?”

Zuko shook his head. “Of course not. You _are_ my daughter. Izumi, you should know better than anyone that family is dictated by who you love and who loves you back, not by blood.”

“Can I ask you something?” Izumi’s now thin voice trembled as she spoke. 

“Anything.”

“Be honest. Did you just adopt me because you needed an heir?”

Pain shot through Zuko’s chest, and in that moment, it was as though his heart shattered into a thousand pieces. “Izumi, I…”

“I want you to be honest with me, dad. Please.”

“That...that was only a small part of it. I do genuinely love you, and I wouldn’t give you up if the entire world was offered to me. I wouldn’t want anyone else as a daughter. I wanted to protect our country and the people I love from my sister. I’ve told you this before, but...if I didn’t have a child, Azula would be my successor. Knowing that, I couldn’t keep going on without an heir. Please try to understand, Izumi. You are my daughter, and I love you. Your anger and sadness are justified, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

Izumi began to cry, covering her face with her hands as she quietly sobbed. “To be honest...I kind of expected this,” she breathed, her voice muffled behind her cupped hands. 

“What?”

Izumi sniffled and wiped her face with the sleeve of her robe. “Seriously, dad? You always avoided mentioning my mother, and in all my years of researching our family history, I never found anything about my mom. I thought at first it was that girl you dated a long time ago, but…a transcript of your speech from that pride parade and a bunch of news headlines about ‘the first openly gay Fire Lord in hundreds of years’ quickly proved me wrong. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I assumed it was obvious. I’m sorry. I never told you because I didn’t think it was relevant. I never dated or brought anyone home, so I never bothered to tell you,” Zuko admitted. 

“Why didn’t you?”

“Date?”

“Yeah. Are you...ashamed?” Izumi questioned. Her tone wasn’t antagonistic or mocking, but it was impossible to read nonetheless.

“No. I’m proud of who I am. I wasted too many years of my life regretting my identity. I’ve long since been done with that.”

“Then why didn’t you date? Wouldn’t it have been easier to have someone else to help take care of me? It’s not like there were never any other male Fire Lords with husbands.” 

Zuko shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I never really cared enough. As odd as this may sound, I guess...I guess I just never had a crush on very many guys. I know for sure that I’m gay, but...I only ever liked one guy, and that was a long time ago.”

Izumi laughed through her drying tears and weakening sniffles. “Who?”

Heat spread across Zuko’s cheeks like magma from a volcanic eruption. “Well...you’ve met him before, actually. It was Sokka.”

“Sokka?!” Izumi almost choked on her tea. “You liked _Sokka_?!”

“What’s wrong with him? Is it his terrible jokes?”

Izumi dabbed at her wet eyes with the sleeve of her robe. “No, just...it’s kind of surprising. You two are just...so different. Plus he’s...married. I guess I never knew him when he wasn’t married to that pretty Kyoshi Warrior girl.”

“He hasn’t changed much. I still like him, but...it’s been so long, and...my feelings towards romance are complicated, to say the least. Either way, the past is in the past, and I’m content with my life as it is now. Sokka’s a married man, and I’m happy staying friends with him. Honestly, I think it’s a little ridiculous that people put romance on such a pedestal, when all my most fulfilling relationships have been with my friends and family.”

“So...it’s okay if I date a girl, then?” Izumi asked bluntly. 

“Huh? Of course. I’ve told you many times that I don’t care who you date, as long as they treat you with respect. Still, you should introduce me to your girlfriend sometime.”

Izumi laughed sheepishly. “Well...I don’t have one. Yet. Buuuut, who knows. Maybe that’ll change.”

“No pressure. I’ll love you regardless of what happens in your love life. I’m already so proud of the young woman you’ve become.”

Izumi rose from her seat across the table and moved around, coming up beside Zuko and wrapping her arms around him. “I love you, dad. I’m glad that fate brought us together.”

“Me too, Izumi.”


End file.
